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Author: Nick Lowles | Date: September 2000
By most measures the British National Party should be pleased with Griffin's first year as leader. Forty-seven thousand votes in the London Assembly election, over twenty per cent in local elections in the West Midlands and South London and membership flourishing. Then why, as he approaches his first anniversary, is the very future of the BNP in such turmoil? Nick Lowles reports on allegations of financial mismanagement which has led to the sacking of treasurer Mike Newland.
NICK GRIFFIN intended the recent BNP's Red White and Blue festival to be a celebration of his first year as leader of the party. In fact, it turned into an embarrassing public display of the crisis gripping the country's largest fascist party.
With several leading party officers not present, the gathering was held against the background of growing animosity towards Griffin and increasingly strong-arm tactics by the leader. Just one week earlier Griffin had sacked party treasurer Mike Newland and informed deputy chairman Sharron Edwards that she was going to be relieved of her post at the end of the year.
The highly damaging row has erupted over the suspected misuse of party funds by Nick Griffin and his able assistant Tony Lecomber. Having secured the leadership by alleging financial impropriety by John Tyndall, it seems that history is repeating itself. It also vindicates a series of articles in Searchlight highlighting financial irregularities and mismanagement by those at the very top of the BNP.
The row first broke out in June as Newland received details of Griffin's recent expenditure. Unbeknown to him Griffin had been freely helping himself to the Trafalgar Club fund, the party's slush fund that had replaced the Tyndall-controlled Welling Club. While Griffin was later to explain this was in lieu of party expenses, Newland had not been consulted. As much as £8,000 was taken from this fund, including a large loan to extend Griffin's house. Although Griffin later said that the extension provided the party with a conference and dining room, Newland was not impressed.
What irritated Newland more was that there were very few receipts to cover the expenditure. Believing that Griffin had made inappropriate payments to himself "a sum far in excess of that which could be conceivably claimed as legitimate party expenditure", he decided to withhold the leader's monthly pay of £1,000.
Worse was to come for the increasingly annoyed party treasurer. The June/July issue of the BNP newspaper, The Voice of Freedom, carried a sizeable advert for "Affordable Cars", a second-hand car business "run by a co-operative of British National Party members and supporters". The telephone number on the advert was that of Nick Griffin.
Despite the bold announcement that "the BNP gets a share of the profit of every single sale", Newland saw the project for what it was, a money-spinning front for Griffin. "Concerning Affordable Cars," Newland wrote in a letter to party organisers and officials. "Mr Griffin declined to give me any invoices for their original purchase or sale - solely bills for car parts etc. I could
hardly account for the car business as a party affair without invoices for the cars themselves. In my view, and particularly from the wording of the advertisement for Affordable Cars in Voice of Freedom, this is a separate business run by Mr Griffin, and I have told him by letter that he should account for it accordingly to the Inland Revenue."
It seems that two of the three vans bought by Griffin for the BNP's recent election campaigns were later sold on through Affordable Cars. No invoices or receipts of sales were ever delivered to Newland.
The party treasurer was not the only person concerned about the formation of Affordable Cars. Deputy leader Sharron Edwards also voiced her disquiet. She too knew nothing of it before she saw The Voice of Freedom advert.
Despite repeated requests for receipts and invoices, Griffin not only continued to hold out on Newland, but went on the offensive. In an emergency organisers' bulletin he insinuated that Newland was orchestrating a challenge to his leadership, while in private he called him an "old woman". Separately, he even questioned the mental capacity of both Newland and Edwards.
Newland was then informed that he was no longer party treasurer. However Griffin quickly implied to the membership that the decision was Newland's alone, stating in the August members' bulletin that Newland "has found the burden of constant responsibility very trying".
Sharron Edwards was not impressed with this latest move. She had backed Newland over the party accounts and questioned the validity of BNP funds being spent on Affordable Cars. The lack of proper and open accounting had, after all, been one of the main charges levelled against Tyndall during the leadership battle last year.
Edwards decided to withdraw from frontline party activity. Until then she had been organising the party's Red, White and Blue festival and was its candidate for the forthcoming West Bromwich West by-election.
While she agreed to stand in the election she seems to be running little more than a paper campaign. She also resigned from organising the festival, leaving Griffin to arrange the event from scratch in less than six weeks.
But Griffin obviously decided that his opponents had to be removed from positions of influence and duly informed the party that come the end of the year Sharron Edwards would be relieved from her position as deputy chairman.
By now the simmering dispute over party funds was quickly turning into a full-scale party feud. In a letter circulated to party officials and organisers, dated 30 July, Edwards went on the offensive against Griffin. Attacking his failure to deliver full receipts for general expenses and money extracted from the Trafalgar Club funds, Edwards enclosed a petition in support of Newland. It was, she added, also to show their "disquiet at the lack of complete accounting, caused by insufficient co-operation by our National Chairman - Nick Griffin".
Asking for the petitions to be returned before the leadership meeting scheduled for the August bank holiday weekend, she added: "The Advisory Council also need to be made aware of the current discontent felt by our officials and key activists at the current lack of documentation - incomplete accounting".
The petition itself, drawn up before Griffin sacked Newland, not only criticised the party leader for past offences but called for greater accountability and openness in the future. "We are disquieted that our Party funds are being rapidly drained without sufficient documentary accounting of incomes and expenditure taking place. All this must be properly presented to the National Treasurer and in turn to the Deputy Chairman - Sharron Edwards, as you promised us before, and since, your election as BNP Chairman.
"All cheques used for the payment of BNP central expenses must carry two approved signatures to be valid. These being always the signature of our National Treasurer, plus National Chairman or one other National Officer to the BNP bank, nominated by the National Chairman."
Since the row has gone public, others have also voiced their concern at Griffin's activities, including some of his strongest supporters in last year's leadership contest. On 5t August the party's Hereford and Worcester organiser, Walter Carr, wrote to Griffin outlining his unhappiness. "Having held a BNP Leadership Election, mainly because J.T. had not had appointed a BNP Treasurer, as required by the BNP Constitution to give confidence and transparency to BNP financial matters, you appear to be virtually repeating his mistakes," he wrote.
Carr went on to describe Griffin as "acting recklessly" and being "out of order" by cashing BNP Central Funds and BNP Trafalgar Club Fund cheques. He also described Newland's sacking as "unacceptable". Despite the forthcoming BNP Advisory Council agreeing to look into the dispute, it seems unlikely that it will end there. Since Newland first questioned Griffin's expenses, other issues have emerged. Quite unbeknown to the party treasurer, Lecomber received a £1,500 loan from party funds, which according to Newland, "required to be repaid from Trafalgar Club funds".
Then there is the question of Griffin's house extension, which was paid for out of party funds without the knowledge of Newland. Although Griffin claims it is for party business in that it will provide a venue for meetings and dinners, there is deep disquiet among many leading activists. Some less charitable members remember the loans Griffin took from the International Third Position while he was a leading member but failed to repay.
Griffin seems in combative mood. At the recent Red, White and Blue festival he continued in the same vein, telling the gathered few - and few it was, with under 200 people there in total, a sizeable number of whom were children - that he had no intention of running the BNP by committee. Whether he was making a critical assessment of past failures by the National Front, or issuing a warning to those within the party ranks who believe that they can outvote him at the Advisory Council, remains to be seen.
But by dismissing Newland and belittling Edwards to party members Griffin is playing a dangerous game. While he has a degree of support from the northern branches, London and the East Midlands, he risks alienating the highly influential West Midlands region, which provides the party's best prospects in the near future, and the South West.
After making so much hay out of Tyndall's alleged financial irregularities, an accusation repeated only a few months ago by Lecomber, Griffin seems to be treading down the same road. The Advisory Council meeting will determine whether this schism will erupt into a party split.
© Searchlight Magazine 2000